Starbucks No Sweat briefing notes

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nosweat.org.uk/node/559

International unions
Starbucks No Sweat briefing notes

No Sweat briefing on Starbucks

August 2007

Starbucks – global corporation

Starbucks is the world's largest coffee chain. Founded in the early 1970s in the United States (US), last year its annual global turnover was $7.8bn (£3.9bn). Starbucks announced in October 2006 its long-term expansion target of 40,000 outlets around the world, more than triple the existing number.

Starbucks opened its first store in London in September 1998, on the King's Road, Chelsea. It opened its 500th outlet in the UK in July 2006. The company announced in January this year that it aimed to open a new store in London every fortnight for the next decade.

Exploiting workers

Over 100,000 people worldwide - known as “partners” – work for Starbucks. More than 5,000 people work for Starbucks in the UK.

Starbucks workers in the US earn as little $6-$8 per hour depending on the location. Every single barista in the US is part-time and not guaranteed any work hours per week. For example, a Starbucks worker can get 35 hours of work one week, 22 hours the week after, and 10 hours the following week. In Britain baristas get a little over the minimum wage – in other words poverty pay.

Meanwhile Starbucks CEO Jim Donald awarded himself a $2.5 million (£1.25m) bonus in 2004. Its highest paid UK director got £452,000 in 2005.

Starbucks baristas work at a relentless pace to meet extraordinary customer demands. The Starbucks work environment is also full of ergonomic hazards, resulting in repetitive strain injuries for many workers.

FULL article at link.

[amitten]

1. Oh, but the BENEFITS! The BENIFITS!!! This is all I ever hear in

regard to the low pay at Starbucks.

Um, benefits are great but mean little if you're basically too poor to even pay your rent.

And by the way, plenty of jobs out there that pay A LOT more have benefits, too. People act like Starbucks is the lone provider of employee benefits or something.

Starbucks is not really any better than Wal-Mart as far as employee compensation, IMHO. The workers just think it's somehow better because it's a more "upscale" business. In reality, those employees are getting screwed.